BBQ Meat Price Report – June 2026

The MSC Market Desk · reviewed by John Kirker · Published July 2, 2026 · Data: June 2026 USDA AMS reports

The Take

Opinion – the desk’s own read, not advice.

Our read: this is not the month to chase steak at the meat counter. When ribeye jumps almost 30% and strip hits a new window high in the same thirty days, that’s a market telling you the good stuff is scarce and priced accordingly – not a signal to stock the freezer. We’d rather lean into the cuts that are actually giving ground: pork loin at a fresh window low, chicken wings at a fresh window low, and beef ribs quietly the cheapest they’ve been all window even while their pricier beef cousins scream higher.

If we’ve got a grill this weekend and a budget to protect, we’re doing what Kroger’s own shoppers apparently aren’t – buying the beef ribs and pork loin, saving the ribeye splurge for a real occasion, and keeping an eye on tri-tip, which despite this month’s 38.9% jump is still running below where it sat a year ago.

The scoreboard (June 2026 grocery features, national averages)

Full live table for every cut: Meat Prices This Week.

The movers

There is no gentle way to say it: steaks had a violent month. Ribeye jumped 29.2% to $17.45/lb and NY strip climbed 20.5% to $17.58/lb – a fresh window high for strip, edging out even April’s $12.60/lb by a wide margin. Alaska remained the ribeye bargain at $10.96/lb against a Northwest high of $18.43/lb, while strip showed the same coast-to-coast split: $11.95/lb in the Northeast versus $15.79/lb in the Midwest. Prime rib wasn’t far behind, up 25.8% to $15.79/lb, also a new window high, with the Northeast’s $7.99/lb looking almost like a typo next to the Northwest’s $21.49/lb. If you’re weighing a splurge cut this month, our ribeye guide and strip guide lay out where the regional gaps are widest.

Tri-tip stole the show on pure velocity: up 38.9% to $12.28/lb, though it’s still 18.5% cheaper than a year ago when it sat at $15.07/lb – context that matters, since this cut swings hard by season. Leg of lamb kept climbing too, up 18.2% to $12.99/lb and now sitting at its own window high, confirming that the supply crunch our prior issue flagged as a risk to lamb’s high didn’t ease – it got worse.

On the other side of the ledger, pork loin fell 12.0% to $2.05/lb, a new window low and down 40.4% from a year ago, while chicken wings dropped 12.4% to $2.61/lb, also a fresh window low. Pork butt slid 10.2% to $3.16/lb and turkey breast eased 11.7% to $5.20/lb, itself a window low. Beef ribs continued to soften too, down 4.8% to $4.32/lb and now the cheapest reading in our 14-month window for that cut – a rare beef discount in a month otherwise dominated by beef increases.

Filet mignon was the quiet exception among beef cuts, down 6.0% to $18.29/lb even as its steak cousins surged – a reminder that not every premium cut moves in lockstep, even in a tight cattle market.

Where the deals are

Regional spreads widened along with the price surge. Shoppers hunting deals should look to the Midwest, which held the cheapest spare ribs at $3.13/lb against a Northwest high of $4.25/lb, and to the Northeast, which offered the cheapest whole chicken at $2.25/lb, cheapest pork tenderloin at $4.35/lb, and cheapest NY strip at $11.95/lb. Hawaii, as usual, sat at the pricey end across the board – $4.97/lb for whole chicken and $6.95/lb for wings – while the Southwest was the place to find pork loin at a startling $0.99/lb… in Hawaii, actually, versus the Southwest’s $4.25/lb high on that same cut, underscoring just how scattered pork loin’s regional map is this month.

Wholesale watch

The wholesale beef cutout barely budged in June, down 1.0% to $3.86/lb on a per-pound-equivalent basis – essentially flat. That’s notable set against the double-digit retail surges in ribeye, strip, and prime rib this month: the cutout’s calm suggests packers aren’t (yet) passing through fresh wholesale pressure, meaning June’s retail spike likely reflects feature pricing and thin cattle supply working through the chain rather than a fresh wholesale spike still to come.

The forces under the market

Beef’s June run has one clear root cause according to published reporting: supply, not demand. The U.S. cattle herd is being described as its smallest in 75 years, with drought and wildfires discouraging ranchers from rebuilding it and pushing feed costs higher in the process.^†11 Layer on the ongoing halt to live cattle imports from Mexico tied to the screwworm outbreak, and reporting suggests the beef supply chain lost a meaningful chunk of feeder cattle from the pipeline this year – a structural squeeze that doesn’t resolve in a single grilling season.^†1

Pork and chicken are telling a more forgiving story. Reporting describes pork bellies and butts facing tight supply alongside improving seasonal demand, but overall pork remaining a comparative bargain next to beef.^†1 Chicken’s calm is a supply story too – production running about 2.9% ahead of last year, which reporting ties directly to the soft, abundant pricing on breasts and wings this summer.^†1 Spare ribs bucked that pork calm, with reporting pointing to a mix of summer grilling demand and a persistent premium for the more desirable St. Louis-style cut over trimmed spareribs.^†1

Dispatches

Packer pain, feeder squeeze

The beef story behind this month’s grocery-case sticker shock traces back to the cattle herd itself: published reporting put the U.S. herd at its smallest in 75 years, with drought and wildfires discouraging herd rebuilding and pushing up feed costs.^†11 JBS added to the strain, announcing it would close its Souderton, Pennsylvania beef plant and a Memphis value-added facility, cutting about 2,000 jobs and pulling roughly 2,000 head a day of processing capacity out of the system after the company posted a $279 million adjusted operating loss in North American beef in the first quarter.^†1

Shoppers split down the meat aisle

Not everyone is paying up. Axios reported many Americans are trading down from beef toward chicken, pork, and turkey on the grill this summer, some stretching ground beef with mushrooms or turkey and buying frozen over fresh.^†5 But a Kroger spokesperson told CNBC that steak demand remained strong with a shift toward premium and organic options, and that beef stayed the preferred choice for Memorial Day and Easter alike – a reminder that “trading down” isn’t the whole story.^†3

Washington tries to backstop the packing floor

Federal policymakers moved to shore up processing capacity even as consolidation squeezes it: USDA launched its Small Processors Action Plan on June 3 with a $60 million fourth round of grant funding, then followed on June 30 with the SPUR Program, offering up to $500 million in temporary support for beef processing establishments.^†6

Last month’s call

Grading our May outlook: we said watch pork belly and pork loin for a pullback, and got half of it backwards. Pork loin did pull back hard this time, down 12.0% to a window-low $2.05/lb, but pork belly held roughly flat at $4.87/lb (+1.0%) rather than repeating last month’s rise. We also flagged chicken thighs’ window low as fragile – it stayed fragile, edging up another 2.1% to $2.41/lb, still well off that low. And our call to watch NY strip against a flat cutout proved exactly right: strip jumped another 20.5% to a new window high of $17.58/lb while the cutout barely moved, -1.0%, which is precisely the retail-outrunning-wholesale gap we flagged. Lamb’s window high, which we wondered might ease, instead climbed further to $12.99/lb.

The playbook

For the family cook: this is a pork-and-poultry month at the smoker, not a steakhouse-at-home month. Pork loin at $2.05/lb and chicken wings at $2.61/lb are both sitting at fresh window lows, and beef ribs at $4.32/lb are the cheapest they’ve been in our tracking – all three make for a legitimate backyard spread without touching the ribeye case. If steak is non-negotiable for a birthday or holiday, shop the Northeast-style regional gap: strip at $11.95/lb versus $15.79/lb is the difference between a treat and a splurge, so check regional features before paying rack rate.

For the caterer or high-volume buyer, the math points to menu flexibility over brand loyalty to any one cut. With the wholesale cutout essentially flat while retail steak prices run hot, there’s a real spread being captured somewhere between the box and the case – worth pressing a supplier on before locking in a summer contract price. Spare ribs, up 24.1% to $3.97/lb, are worth a second look too given how tight the cut-style premium reporting suggests spareribs are running versus trimmed ribs.

Watching next month

Summer grilling season is far from over, and the numbers argue for watching whether steak prices hold their new highs or start giving some back once the July Fourth push passes – ribeye and strip are both sitting well above their window lows from earlier in the year ($12.78/lb and $12.60/lb respectively), which leaves room to fall if demand cools. Leg of lamb’s fresh window high of $12.99/lb is also one to track heading into the back half of summer, and pork belly and pork butt – both past window lows in the last year – are worth watching for whether their recent softness (pork butt down 10.2% this month) continues or reverses again.

Sources

1. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-national-weekly-pork-report-fob-plant-forward-sales-june-15-2026/
2. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-national-pasture-raised-pork-report-q2-2026-price-ranges-and-averages/
3. meatread.com/cut-prices/pork-spareribs
4. meatread.com/c/pork/trmd-sparerib-med-combo
5. beefpriceindex.com/sirloin-steak/
6. beefpriceindex.com/
7. grocerychop.com/price-index/vs-cpi/2026-06
8. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-national-weekly-boxed-beef-cuts-for-prime-product-report-june-29-2026/
9. beefpriceindex.com/cuts/
10. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-boxed-beef-sales-report-june-22-2026-choice-select-and-ground-beef-volume-prices/
11. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-grass-fed-beef-report-q2-2026-prices-for-steaks-ground-beef-and-carcass-cuts/
12. www.linkedin.com/posts/protein-specialists-llc_proteinspecialists-beefmarket-porkmarket-activity-7476605249525309440-rLu0
13. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-boxed-beef-cutout-report-june-24-2026-choice-and-select-prices-decline/
14. www.indexbox.io/blog/usda-boxed-beef-cutout-report-june-10-2026-choice-and-select-values/